I don’t like jelly.I don’t trust the way it moves.

THE OFFICE

Jelly

JellyResponds

Jelly responds to an electroencephalograph (EEG) in nearly the same way as a healthy human brain. The jelly exhibits alpha rhythms as human brains do when people are awake but have their eyes closed. From its EEG results alone, a jelly would not qualify as sufficiently ‘dead’ to have its life support removed.

Neurologist Adrian Upton examined ‘the electroencephalography of gelatine desserts’ to make a serious point about brain death, which became critical once life-support equipment made it possible to keep a body functioning indefinitely.

What happens is that the jelly picks up extraneous signals in the room –from sources like respirators, IV drips, even ringing telephones. The implication is that a brain apparently generating similar signals may in fact be deceased.

This does not mean that EEGs are useless, just that they need to be considered together with other signs. A positive response does not necessarily mean that the patient is alive and nor does a negative one necessarily mean that he is dead (he might, for example, have hypothermia).

Gelatine, the main gelling agent for jelly, was used as a blood plasma substitute during World War I.

The Secret Sevenand the Jelly

Ewart Wharmby, who worked at Enid Blyton’s publishers Brockhampton Press, told her about a secret society his four children had created. It had its own password and they had commandeered the garden shed for their HQ. Enid was delighted by the idea and wrote to his eldest son whose reply provided the inspiration for the Secret Seven books. She sent a thank you letter and enclosed some money in the envelope which the society wisely spent on jelly and chips.

It wasn’t always plain sailing for the Secret Seven however, as George puts it in Look Out Secret Seven: ‘We all meet in a shed with S.S. on the door – and we have great fun.’